Not A Fairytale
by angels-of-the-silence
Summary: A collection of IchiRuki drabbles and oneshots. 20. How to be Human 101. 22. And he wondered if the other had been startled by that blue. 23. Famous last words. 24. Byakuya has a diabolical scheme, and if it doesn't work he still gets to kill Ichigo.
1. Not A Fairytale

Not A Fairytale

Ichigo and Rukia were not soul mates. They did not complete each other. Mostly, they just annoyed each other. They were not two pieces of a puzzle that fit together. She was a sky piece with a bit of cloud, and he was a piece with grass and part of a leaf. Not only did they not fit together, but it often seemed as though they were from two completely different puzzles. Which hated each other.

Ichigo was not a gallant knight. He scowled, swore, and got his ass kicked by Rukia on a daily basis. If you ever found him speaking in prose, it was because he was drunk and Rukia had probably hit him on the head again. In his opinion, 'shining armor' was heavy and damn annoying, and hankerchiefs were for wiping your nose, not putting in a pocket above your heart and cherishing forever.

Rukia was not a beautiful princess. Actually, she was more like the devil's own nightmare. She didn't fawn, she hated it when other people fought for her, and would rather jump in the way of a sword that was about to hit a friend than scream and cry for someone to save her. Actually, she'd rather die than scream and cry for someone to save her. She liked rabbits, but she wasn't sure whether she wanted to have one for a pet or to see how one tasted with ketchup- they'd never had ketchup in Rukongai. Hey, she'd been starving to death. You ate what you could find. She was more likely to be found ooohing and aaaahing over a toaster than singing a pretty song and brushing her hair.

Their life was not a fairy tale. It involved blood, pain, fighting Hollows, crazy Modified Souls, random people popping through a hole in your ceiling, and a lot of people too perverted for their own good. These people were subsequently beaten to a pulp by Rukia, who did not like being grabbed, or by Ichigo, who did not like anyone even _thinking_ about grabbing Rukia.

They did not proclaim vows of everlasting love. Usually they screamed in each other's faces. The screaming often consisted mostly of words like, "moron," "fool," and "idiot," and phrases such as, "I hate you," "I can't stand this midget," "how dare you call me a midget, you bastard," and "ouch, you bitch, you are going to break my arm."

Their favorite pastimes consisted of finding ways to taunt or harass each other, and if either of them talked about their feelings- oh, the horror of mortification- the other would probably laugh in their face and make fun of them for a week.

But that was all right.

The last thing they ever wanted from each other was _kindness_ or _sympathy_- that was annoying, and got in the way.

They didn't _want_ a fairytale.

What they did want was to know why the _hell_ they had had to fall in love with _this_ freak of nature.

If they ever voiced that, however, it would probably lead to a game of find-Ichigo's-head-under-the-wastebasket.


	2. An Annoying Difference

An Annoying Difference

Ichigo had _never_ reminded Rukia of Kaien.

Of course, the inital similarity in appearance was obvious, and had caught her quite off-guard. (She had, of course, been able to hide it well- she had learned to hide a lot of things.)

But once she _knew_ him... Never.

His hair... too bright, too short. His eyes never glittered with a strange humor that no one but he could understand. He never smiled like a complete moron. He never stared at her upside-down and talked about his feelings for no reason. ...Or for any reason at all, for that matter. He wasn't impressive enough that she was reluctant to hit him- when he deserved it (which, by the way, he did far more often than Kaien had) she made sure to _whack_ him one. He was completely incapable of making jokes, or being affectionate. He wasn't tolerant of her obsession with rabbits.

But the most _annoying _difference between Ichigo and Kaien was that Kaien had always allowed her to fight for herself, and Ichigo almost _never _did.

So, one day, Rukia snapped.

"You _FOOL_!!!" she screamed, smacking him over the head with the flat of Sode no Shirayuki. (She didn't _hurt_ him, of course- she often wanted to _kill_ him, but never _hurt_ him.)

Ichigo actually had the good grace to look confused instead of angry.

"What the _hell_." It was said mildly, not even like a question. Apparently, he had become used to her frequent 'attacks of crazy' (as he called them) and no longer allowed them to bother him.

Damn. She wouldn't have any other good excuses to beat him up.

"You FOOL!" she repeated, slightly less furiously this time as she sheathed her Zanpakutou. "Why do you always _do_ that?!"

"Do _what_, dammit?" Apparently she was getting to him. Good.

"Say, 'leave this one to me, Rukia,' and go off and fight by yourself! And if I _do_ try to fight, you shove me out of the damn way! _That_, you fool!"

He stared at her as though she was crazy. (Which, she had to admit, probably wasn't too far off the mark.) "Wha'? Why the hell should you _care_? Just means you don't have to bother with little things..."

The fact that he had a point (somehow) only made her angrier.

"You... FOOL! Do you think that I am incapable of fighting for myself?!"

"What did I just _say_, moron?"

"ANSWER THE QUESTION!"

"Fine, fine! Geez. Of course you can fight for yourself."

The simplicity of his answer served to (again) infuriate her further.

"Then... why?!"

"Didn't I already _answer_ that?!"

Rukia threw her hands in the air, spun on her heel, and stalked off.

She did, after all, have to get back to her gigai before Chappy completely destroyed it.

That question never _was_ answered to Rukia's satisfaction. (There was no way, she never knew Ichigo would tell himself, that he was gonna say that, despite the fact that she could undoubtedly fight for herself, the thought of her ever actually getting _hurt_ terrified him more than anything else, to her face. It would be embarassing as hell, and she'd probably _eat_ him.)

And there was another annoying difference.

Kaien, had the situation been at all similar, might not have answered the question, either, but at least he would have given her a better reaction for whacking him!


	3. Farewell For Now

Farewell For Now

She still called him, sometimes. His cell phone would ring in the middle of the night, and he'd rush to answer it, just to hear her again. "Hey, Ichigo," she'd greet him, and he was always able to hear the smile in her voice, even if it wouldn't be on her face. "Rukia," he'd reply, keeping his tone exhasperated, "Why the hell are you calling in the middle of the night?" That would make her laugh. Probably _at_ him, but it _was_ Rukia. She would go straight into a description of _exactly_ what she'd been up to, subtly making fun of him as much as possible in the process, whether or not she thought he cared or was listening. After an extended rant, she'd pause, and then grudgingly say, "I miss you."

He'd smile, though she couldn't see it, and reply that he missed her, too. It was true. He missed her stupid jokes, her bad acting, her hilarious reactions to random modern objects, even her complete and utter insanity. ...On occasion. It had been three years before they'd gotten over themselves enough to figure it out and admit that being partners, even being friends, wasn't all that either of them wanted. It had been three and a half years before Soul Society had decided that Rukia should not be meddling in the affairs of humans and pulled her back. She was probably breaking the rules by calling him, but, ever since what Ichigo liked to call "all that crap with the execution," neither of them had been too much of a stickler for the rules. At first, he'd been worried that she would get in trouble, but she'd ignored his protestations and kept calling him anyway. Nothing had happened yet, so they were probably fine.

"Don't you dare get yourself killed," she'd say warningly, and he could almost see her narrowing her eyes at him and shoving a finger in his face threateningly. This would probably happen after she'd found something offensive about him and used it as an excuse to knock him to the ground. At that, he'd laugh. "Of course I won't. I finally learned to conceal my reiatsu, remember? Hollows don't bug Karakura any more." She'd scream at him- quietly- that there were a million other ways to die, and then remind him that he either had to die quickly and get it over with before he got too old or die a natural death later so that he could choose his own age when he went to Soul Society. "The second I die, you'll know it," he'd inform her, "'Cause I'll be breakin' into Sereitei to come and find you."

"Oh, _wonderful_," she'd sigh, probably rolling her eyes at the other end. "You _could_ just go to the school and wait for me to find you, you know."

"But that wouldn't be nearly as-"

"-fun, I know."

"Che. You know me too well. Ack, I gotta go. 'Bye, Rukia."

"Farewell for now."

"And Rukia?"

"Yes, fool?"

"Stay safe, idiot."


	4. Fate's Wheel

Fate's Wheel

She couldn't breathe.

It was too horrible.

It couldn't be happening.

If she didn't believe it, then it wouldn't be real. Right?

No.

She had learned long ago that hope led only to greater pain, in the end. So she decided not to hope. She would accept it.

The weight of his body pressing down on her was enough proof. It was dead weight. He dangled from her sword like a doll.

Blood spattered against her face, gushed over her hands in a hot, terrible flow.

She'd killed him.

Then his hand came up to rest, shaking, against her back, and he spoke.

"Rukia," he said. "Rukia. I'm sorry. Because of me... I would have killed you, Rukia. I'm sorry."

She wanted to say something, anything, to make him stop apologizing. It was she who should apologize. She was the cause of this. By letting him fight it alone, she had saved his pride... but ended his life.

So the only thing she ended up saving was herself.

She wanted to tell him that, but she couldn't speak.

"Thank you," he went on. She was staggering under his weight. Why would he thank her? But he didn't explain. "Thank you," he repeated, and then his hand fell.

It became too much for her, and she fell to her knees. She put her arms around his neck and cried.

Fate was a bitter, cruel wheel. Shiba Kaien had been crushed in the spokes. And on its next turn, it had taken Kurosaki Ichigo with it.

And it was all her fault.

- - - - - -

A year passed. Captain Ukitake watched with sad eyes as one of his favorite officers faded again. Renji, who had learned his lesson about distancing himself from his friend, tried in vain to comfort her. Byakuya... looked away.

Rukia spent her time, more and more, training and fighting. She stopped speaking to anyone but Renji and Ukitake, except when it was necessary. She couldn't take the stares, sympathetic, hostile, or curious, from everyone else. Since Ukitake had known better than to keep her from her memories, he had reassigned her to Karakura town. She knew that, every so often, one of them, one of her old friends, would see her out of the corner or their eye, but she would be gone before they could take a second look. Perhaps she should have spoken to them, but it hurt too much.

Then, one day, Ukitake requested a report in person. Wearily, Rukia returned to Sereitei. The white-marbled walls taunted her as she passed between them, and the memories assaulted her with every step. He had come here to save her, and he had let her stay when she asked. He had welcomed her back, and been her friend again again. And then the Hollow inside had overcome him, and he had died by her blade. The only thing that she could expect out of life, for the moment, was the report.

She certainly didn't expect the call.

"Oi! Rukia!"

The familiar voice hit her like a blow, and she staggered to a halt. No... she had imagined it. But hope, that twisted pain, made her turn.

She was just in time to be nearly knocked over backward as he seized her.

He was bent nearly in two so that he could embrace her, and his orange hair tickled her nose.

It was _him_.

How could it be...?

"Ch. Guess there really is something good after ya die, huh?"

"Ich...i...go...?"

He was wearing the robes of a Shinigami-in-training.

Not that he really needed it.

Before she could believe it, he was kissing her.

He drew back, eventually, and she stared at his face.

"You..." she began. "You... how..."

Ichigo smirked. "Don't think you're gettin' rid of me that easy."

Perhaps Fate's Wheel wasn't so cruel after all.

((Heh... I was bored, okay, and it was all... blah. I thought, hey, what if...))


	5. Placing the Blame

Placing the Blame

She had used to like the rain.

The first time she had been with Renji when it rained in Rukongai, she had seized his hand and, with considerably more strength than would be expected from someone her size, dragged him into the open to dance in circles under the clouded sky. She remembered wistfully her childish glee at this simple act. But she knew better now. The rain took things away.

She had watched it wash two men away. Two men who had meant more to her than anyone else. Two men who were strikingly similar, and yet so very different. Two men who had been claimed by the rain. But she couldn't place the blame on the sky. Both of them had died because of her.

Shiba Kaien had died by her blade, died by her hands. Though it hadn't been those hands which killed Kurosaki Ichigo, they might as well have done the deed. Those hands had given him the powers that led to his undoing.

She hadn't wanted to watch him die, as she had watched Kaien. So she had turned her face away, and followed submissively after her brother and Renji, friend turned captor. But she hadn't been able to resist taking one final look as the door had closed behind her, and so she had seen the pain in Ichigo's eyes, the fear... and the betrayal. She had betrayed him, just as the rain, once much-loved, had betrayed her. The steady sound of its falling had pulled him away after Kaien.

So Kuchiki Rukia sat in her cell, and waited. She deserved the execution she had been sentenced to, and she knew it. She protected no one but herself. She was disgusting. Though her death would not atone for her sins, it would prevent her from committing others, and so she was grateful to it. But for some reason... before she died, she hoped that she would be able to see the rain once more.


	6. Spider

Spider

"Ichigo." Poke. "Ichigo." Poke. "_Ichigo._" Jab. "ICHIGO." Whap in the face.

This was a method of getting attention from someone who wasn't paying any that Rukia had learned from Kaien. It was very effective, especially since Rukia's victim had been asleep and she had whacked him _very_ hard.

Ichigo started, and nearly collided heads with Rukia, who avoided him smoothly, looking all unconcened. "OUCH! Rukia, what the hell-" He glanced wildly at the clock beside his bed. "It's three in the freaking morning!"

"I know," Rukia said steadily.

"Then _why_ did you-"

"I need a bucket and a piece of paper."

Now she had his attention. Whenever she wanted something, it usually meant disaster. He was very suspicious of her. "Why?" he asked warily, glancing around the room for anything that might be a reason for her sudden desire for a bucket and paper.

"'Cause there's a giant spider in the closet." Rukia nodded gravely. "It's as big as your inflated head, and that's saying something, so I'll need a big bucket..."

"Shut up," Ichigo said automatically at the insult, and then actually thought about what she'd said. "A spider?"

"Yes, dolt." Rukia rolled her eyes. "Spider. An arachnid. You know, hairy, eight legs, lots of eyes? Some are poisonous? The sort of thing you don't want to sleep on top of? Bucket? Paper? Now?"

With a sigh, Ichigo got up and rooted around for the requested items- she was damn lucky he had a bucket in his room. Actually, she wasn't, since it was bright pink with rabbits on it and she'd been the one who had insisted on buying it. Though maybe Ichigo was the unlucky one for that.

As soon as she had what she wanted, Rukia dashed into the closet and, as Ichigo watched from a safe distance, gently captured the spider (which was nearly as big as she'd insisted it was) under the bucket and slid the paper expertly underneath to keep it in. She turned the bucket slowly over, so as not to hurt the creature, and carried it to the window. She let the spider crawl out onto the wall, and closed the window behind it. Ichigo noticed an almost tender look on her face as she watched it scurry away.

"You know," he said casually as Rukia trooped back to the closet, "most girls would've been screaming bloody murder if they saw a spider. Probably something along the lines of, kill it, kill it."

Rukia stopped settling herself in and turned to look at him.

"Why would I do that?" she asked, softly. "It wasn't trying to hurt me." She looked a bit sad. "I don't harm things that have no harmful intent themselves. It was just a spider."

Ichigo surveyed her for a moment. One second she was a bloodthirsty Hollow-killer, and the next she felt compassion for all living beings. She would never cease to surprise him.

"Okay," he agreed after a moment. "Guess you're right."

He lay back down turned over to face the wall. Halfway through shutting the closet door, he heard her pause.

"Besides," she added, "It isn't as though I haven't had practice in getting rid of spiders. Renji's terrified of them."

Oh, really.

Suddenly Ichigo had a very evil plan.


	7. Spider II

Spider II

Every single day.

That damn spider.

Every single day, that damn spider somehow snuck back into the closet. Rukia eventually determined that it was a tarantula- probably an escaped pet- and therefore harmless. So she had decided to deal with it. It didn't really bother her- just scared her silly when it appeared unexpectedly. When she mentioned its appearance in passing to Ichigo, he snorted and reminded her that she didn't _have_ to sleep in his closet. She could go and sleep in Karin and Yuzu's room like a _normal_ person. This had evolved into his face in the mud beneath the heaviest textbook Rukia had been able to find.

No matter.

The point was that the spider was not going away.

Unfortunately, Renji had been (after considerable asking on his part) granted a week off to go and visit. This was unfortunate because Renji was deathly afraid of spiders. He screamed like a little girl whenever he saw one.

It was rather funny, actually, Rukia had to admit to herself, the way he danced around trying to avoid anything vaguely spider-shaped.

Ichigo shared this opinion, but wasn't nearly as quiet about it.

"Hey RRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!"

Renji dashed, looking panicked, into Ichigo's room, where Rukia had been sitting drawing some pictures. They were, of course, fabulous, whatever Ichigo said about them. He was just jealous. Now Rukia looked up.

"Renji?"

Renji didn't respond, but rather dove head-first into the closet and slammed the door shut.

Rukia stared at the closed door.

"Um...?"

Just then Ichigo came sauntering into the room, a huge smirk plastered onto his face. He was holding a rubber spider.

"Ichigo!" Rukia snapped, closing her drawing pad gently. "Put that away this _instant!_"

Ichigo made a face, but he knew when it was best to do as Rukia said- he didn't want any new holes in the walls- and tossed the object into the wastebasket.

"Fine. There. Happy?"

"I-Is it... gone...?" Renji quavered from the closet.

Rukia sighed and Ichigo barely concealed a snigger. "Yes, Renji," Rukia called back, shooting a warning glance at Ichigo. "He threw it out. You can come out now..."

Renji appeared.

Rukia and Ichgio stared at him.

"What?"

"Renji..." Rukia began carefully, "Don't panic, because it's really okay, but..."

"What?!"

"Don't panic, but-"

"There's a spider on your face," Ichigo said flatly.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And Renji fell out the window.

((XP Sorry, couldn't resist... I got this idea because, the other night, I was talking to someone and this _massive_ cockroach suddenly landed on her face and started crawling all over. It was _so_ nasty. I screamed like a maniac and dove for cover. So did she.

It was really funny in retrospect... -snickers- But really scary.

-Silence))


	8. Romeo and Juliet

ROMEO AND JULIET

"It is now official, Ichigo: I _hate_ this 'Romeo and Juliet' thing."

From her _completely entitled_ position on her stomach on Ichigo's bed, Rukia knocked her feet repeatedly against his pillow while staring at the open book in front of her. It had been assigned for school, and she _detested_ it.

"What?" Ichigo asked, looking around at her. He had been leaning back in his chair, half-listening to his music but mostly gazing blankly at the wall. He'd read _Romeo and Juliet_ long ago, so there had been no concern in that area. "Why?"

Rukia sighed, sounding exhasperated. "Isn't it _obvious?_" she demanded. "It's ridiculous! The entire thing! They met for _two minutes_ and suddenly decided that they were in love!" She glared disgustedly at the page. "That is called _lust_. And then they're all, 'ooh, we can never be together, yadayadayada, let's go through with an incredibly stupid plan to get married in secret'! And then the little- and then they go and kill themselves! How pointless is _that?_ They don't even _try_ to come up with a reasonable plan!"

Ichigo blinked at her.

"You're missing the point entirely," he said flatly.

"_What _point?"

"It's about... Geez, don't you get it? True love, and all that."

"After _two minutes?_ They don't know each other!"

"Well, I guess it was 'love at first sight'... You know."

"That is absolutely ridiculous." Rukia made a face and, rolling over, poked him rather hard in the side with her toe.

"Ouch."

"Shut up." Unconcerned, Rukia went on. "Love at first sight doesn't _exist,_ numbskull. You can't fall in love with someone without knowing _them._ Romeo and Juliet decided that they were in love just by looking at each other. That's stupid. You can't even know you'll _tolerate_ someone just by looking at them and interacting for a minute or two."

Ichigo raised an eyebrow at her. "You really are cynical, aren't you, midget?"

Kick.

"Ouch. Again."

"Shut up. Anyway... if you're not going to believe me, then take us for example."

The eyebrow shot up again.

"I detested you when I first met you. Actually, I still find you annoying. But after I knew the you that wasn't quite so stupid- Mister I-think-I'll-attack-a-Huge-Hollow-with-a-foldup-chair-" Ichigo mumbled something under his breath, but Rukia ignored him. "-I began to find you far less aggravating. And now I consider you a friend. An _annoying_ friend, but a friend. But if I went by my first impression of you, I'd still think you a complete and utter moron with no potential for anything but total disaster. And I'd hate you for all eternity." She paused. "Although sometimes I think I will anyway."

"That has absolutely _nothing_ to do with Romeo and Juliet."

"Then you're stupid." The logic of the almighty Rukia-sama. "Anyway, you can't argue with the stupid whining and then the even more stupid plan."

"Their families hated each other, moron. There _wasn't_ any way for them to be together other than getting married in stupid." There had been something vaguely wrong with that last sentence, but he couldn't put his finger on it...

"In _stupid?_"

Oh. So that had been it.

"I meant in _secret._"

"Whatever. Anyway, they could have come up with something better than that! They could have broken the rules. They could have stayed together, even if it meant they would be killed." Rukia frowned at the book, apparently oblivious of the discomfort Ichigo was experiencing. She was _really_ freaking him out now. "If you care about something, you fight for it. You shouldn't care about the consequences for yourself.

"And then Romeo completely abandons Juliet!" she suddenly burst out angrily. "He marries her, defiles her virtue, and then runs away! He ruins her life, twists her fate, and then abandons her to save himself, under the pretense of protecting her as well." With a sudden kick, she shoved the pillow off the bed. "He just... he abandons her. He doesn't even try to make it so that he can see her again, talk to her again."

At this point, Ichigo was too afraid to interrupt. When Rukia was really into a rant, interrupting her would earn you a bloody nose at the very least, and on several occasions an Ichigo-sized hole in the wall.

"And then they both die." Rukia's voice was abruptly quiet. "She tries to be with him, it gets messed up, he kills himself, and she gives up and dies, too."

There was silence for a moment as Rukia apparently pondered this and Ichigo tried not to be too terrified of what she was going to attack next.

"That's it," she burst out, spinning on her stomach and, feet in the air, rustling her head and arms around under the bed. She came back up with her sketchpad. "I'm rewriting the ending!"

Ichigo shook his head.

"That's _stupid,_" he said, taking a risk and bracing himself for the consequences. But instead of attacking him, she glanced over without a sound. Then she said, "I think that you of all people should know that history can be rewritten." Then she turned back to her sketchpad and began work, leaving him to stare at the back of her head in something like amazement.

((Eeeww, that was lame. But if you didn't get it, you are, in the words of Ichigo, stupid, and there is no help for you. That is all.

-Silence))


	9. Foundation

Foundation

Her name meant "rotting wood."

Rukia had always wondered why her parents had given her such a name, and later why her sister had wanted to preserve it. But, though she pretended not to care, she thought that they had had something there.

She was rotting wood.

From the beginning she had been trash, a throwaway. No one had been foolish enough to want a piece of rotting wood. Renji and her other friends had only taken her in because they hadn't been able to see how she was rotting inside. They had only seen the smooth, if mottled, finish. The "aura of grace" that Renji had noticed. It was fake. They were fools not to have seen that.

Then she had been adopted into the Kuchiki family, given a fresh coat of glittering paint, but nothing had erased the rot. Only the veneer had improved.

After Kaien-dono's death, the rot, the disease, had spread, and even the finish had faltered. When she met Ichigo, she had sought to repaint herself again- a teacher, a companion, perfect in all detail. But she couldn't change what no one could see.

The gigai she had resided in seemed to solidify her condition: now she was _literally_ rotting from the inside out, her life being drained away by her own body. If that wasn't irony, Rukia didn't know what was.

All she could do was keep up the paint. Ichigo couldn't see through it. She could tell. He didn't know. She wanted to preserve that ignorance, as a small, precious thing. But she couldn't hide it forever.

He was using her as a foundation, one of the base pieces for the building that represented his strength. She looked sturdy, on the outside, but, like all rotting wood, eventually she would collapse.

She only hoped that she wouldn't take him with her.


	10. Bother

**Bother**

Don't bother.

Please, don't come for me.

You don't need to bother.

I'm begging you.

Don't follow me.

It played, on endless repeat in her mind.

Please, don't bother. Whatever you do, don't come. Don't bleed for me.

I don't _need_ to live- really! I don't care if I live or die! Actually, I'd rather die!

In her mind, she argued with him.

Don't be stupid! the imaginary Ichigo snapped. 'the hell kinda thing t'say is that? "I don't need to live"? What are you, a bad love song?

Shut up! Rukia replied furiously. I was trying to get a point across! Just don't come after me, fool! I don't care! Just- leave me alone! I don't want you to die, moron!

Well, what if I don't want _you_ to die?!

That's stupid!

No, _you're_ stupid!

I didn't say _you_ were stupid! What you _said_ was stupid!

Did I _say_ that you said I was stupid?! I never said that you said that I'm stupid, stupid! I only said that you're stupid, stupid, and not what I said, stupid!

Well- _what?_

I don't wanna hear it! I'm comin', and you can't _stop_ me, midget!

How dare you call me that?!

I'll call ya whatever the-

Hanatorou eyed the noblewoman, slightly frightened. She was still a bit intimidating, whether or not she wanted him to be familiar with her. She had been in the middle of telling him a story involving something called a "juice box" while he was sweeping, and she had suddenly stopped, staring blankly at a dark patch on the wall.

"K-Kuchiki-s-sama?"

Rukia blinked suddenly, and looked over at him. "Yes, Hanatorou? And I told you to call me Rukia, please."

"Nothing, K-Rukia. -sama. -san. Er. Um..."

As Hanatorou nearly broke his broom wringing it in anxiety, Rukia frowned at him, through him.

She must be going crazy.

Oh well.

She hoped that, somehow, Ichigo was still alive. More than that- that he wouldn't try to come after her.

She didn't want him to die...

I don't care what you want! I'm savin' ya, whether you like it or not!

Shut up already!

Why?

Because I don't want you to come for me! Don't you understand?! I want you to be safe! I don't want you to bleed for me!

There's no reason I shouldn't- why do you even care, dammit?!

Because!

Because _why?_

Because I do!

That's not a reason!

I say it _is!_

Well, _I_-

Please, Rukia begged him. Just don't bother.

((Sorta a train of thought, sorta a psycho-fic... Er... Yeah. I just heard this great song called "Bother," and it was perfect, so...

-Silence))


	11. All My Love

**All My Love**

There was once a chance I didn't take.

They had told me that my orders were to go back. Return home.

Home?

It wasn't home anymore. Maybe it never had been. Now home was a tiny, windowless closet, shoved between boxes of old socks and things no one wanted lying around. Home was a place I thought I could never belong. But my orders were clear.

Leave.

Don't even tell him if you can avoid it- write him a letter. Make sure it doesn't encourage him, they added hastily, remembering the outcome of the _last_ goodbye letter I left him.

They never had been able to rebuild the walls.

He caught me halfway through writing it. Asked me what I was doing. I apologized. I'm sorry, I told him, but I have to go. He insisted that I didn't, that they couldn't force me because he wouldn't let them. If they laid a finger on me, he said, he would systematically dismember them. I smiled crookedly at that, but repeated that I had to go. I will never forget the look on his face. But you can't leave, he said. I need you here.

I need you.

I'd wanted him to say that for the longest time. I'd cajoled him, harassed him, teased him, but nothing I did could make him say he wanted me there. All he would say, when I finally asked him why, if he didn't want me around, he had come to get me when I would have been executed, was, I owed you. And geez, I wouldn't let you _die_ or anything. I had wanted him to say it so badly. It would have given me an excuse to tell him that I needed him, too. And I did. I still do. I need him to fight with, smile with, attack on occasion.

What really gets me is that I think I loved him- love him. We were no fairytale, but we certainly had something. Love isn't a word I would ever have used in reference to him, except for being separated from him for so long. I haven't been reminded of how annoying he could be. How he called my drawings stupid. How he made fun of my adoration of rabbits- I still love them, you know; they're just so adorable. I certainly haven't considered the fact that, if I ever used the word love in his presence, he would never let me live it down.

I wanted to tell him, so badly.

But orders were orders.

And I didn't.

Sorry, I repeated. I brushed past him, and left. I never looked back. And I never saw him again, until last year.

I wish I hadn't seen him.

I wish we had never met.

I wish that he had taken my advice- kill an opponent from behind. One blow to the head, and be done with it.

I wish he had killed me before I looked.

Apparently the three years we had been apart had seen him grow up. Eighteen. That was his age, wasn't it? It is still so hard to believe that, for all time time I knew him, he was only fifteen years old. A life like that is little more than a blink for someone who can live as long as I, but somehow he seemed as eternal as anyone else I knew.

But there had always been a monster inside of him. I had, up until then, only seen it once. Terrifying, I had thought. But that time he had fought it off. This time, there was no turning back. And I killed him. If I hadn't, he would have killed me. Do you know what it feels like to kill the one person you love more than anything else? I have discovered this feeling twice.

The saddest part is that everyone thinks I'm a hero. You probably think me a hero. I killed a menace to all of us. I destroyed a monster which could have killed us all. He was a disaster. He would surely have destroyed everything, if left unchecked.

He had already killed all of my human friends. His entire family. My best friend, who had never forgotten what he had done to save me and had tried to kill him quickly. My captain. Countless other innocents whose names I will never know.

I will never escape the feeling that it could have been avoided. I could have taken the chance. I could have told him. I could have disobeyed orders, and stayed- it wouldn't have been the first time. I could have helped him.

But I didn't.

And that is why I am writing this letter.

You're probably not reading any more.

The ramblings of a mentally disturbed woman, I'm sure you're thinking. Why else would she do this?

I will tell you why.

Because I cannot live with the guilt.

They are all dead, and it is all my fault. It might as well have been my hands which took every one of their lives.

What else could I do now?

There is nothing left for me but a hero's wecome, everywhere I go, and that is nothing I want. I am a hero because I am a murderer, and I cannot stand for that.

So goodbye. I don't know who you are, but I want you to know something. If you are presented with the chance, take it.

Turning away only leads to endings.

All my love,

Kuchiki Rukia


	12. Words

**Words**

In the end, they never did say it.

Words didn't... fit. "If you ever die, I'll kill you, you moron" was about as close as they ever got to talking about feelings. Words were only words. It was actions that really spoke. What screamed the three words that no one would _ever_ hear them say were the things they did.

They said it every time they argued, but always made up in the end- sort of.

When one went absolutely _insane_ at an enemy who did what they saw as unforgiveable damage to the other. (Usually, that was him, because she knew perfectly well that he was, as a friend had once commented, like a cockroach. If someone _killed_ him he probably wouldn't die. He, however, seemed to never be able to get over the fear that any little thing that touched her would be her undoing. This led to many games of see-if-you-can-find-the-twitching-mass-of-pain-that-is-(what is left of)him.)

They said it when she healed his injuries no matter how much he protested, and even if she had to beat the crap out of him to make him let her. The fact that this made injuries worse did not matter in the slightest.

Sometimes, when they thought no one was looking, they were considerate of each other. They screamed it then.

But some people saw only the problems. These people saw the arguments, but not the eventual peace. They saw the battles, but not the concern. They saw the "games" which resulted from his rather annoying proclamations that she needed him to protect her. These were the people who always had their back turned. These were the people who could only hear words.

Only a few people saw, and only a few people knew.

But they were two of them, so what did it matter?

Words were only words.

((Yeah, random, ranting, "he" and "she" instead of "Ichigo" and "Rukia" because it worked better that way. Blah.

-Silence))


	13. Weakness

**Weakness**

She hated the feeling of being powerless. It hurt.

Every time there was a Hollow, she had been forced to watch from the sidelines, able to do nothing but worry and shout suggestions. Often he didn't listen. Desperate, she would throw herself into the fight, but she would always end up having to be saved. She hated it.

Her forehead rested against the cool stone of the curved walls. It was strange that this, the very material which kept her from recovering and made her remain feeling so wretched, this was the only small source of comfort she could find. The feeling of the cold seeping through her skins and the thin cloth of her prisoner's kimono reminded her of ice. The snow... Beautiful white, pure in its color and its crystal freeze. Lovely, but equally unfeeling. She was like the ice, she decided.

She was pretty on the outside, but inside, she was dead.

She couldn't even pretend to be a real person. When she was in the real world, she had tried to imitate the living girls around her. She had wanted so badly to be alive. It was funny, really, the way that the one thing she wanted was always the one thing she couldn't have.

She had wanted a family. When she finally thought she had gotten one, it was ripped out from under her, leaving her stranded in space. Then she had clung to her one remaining friend, frantically. That, too, had been taken away, replaced by a taunt. Here, the fates had said, have a family. A family? That was a joke. A family did not consist of one man who wouldn't even look at her, various disapproving relatives, and an army of servants who disliked her as much as the rest. She had screamed for something more, for some sort of real love. Again, she was mocked. You want love? Here. Love someone you can never have. And, just to make our point clear, we'll take even that from you. She had wanted to die, but pride kept her from even that backwards comfort. Send her to the living world, and throw a memory in her face. Take her powers, take her memories, and take her life.

How dare you love someone?

How dare you allow someone to care about you?

You don't have that right.

You are ice. And ice must be kept in a frozen environment, or it will melt. Were you melting from the warmth? Come back into the cold, and we'll shut the door.

The door slammed closed behind her, but she found herself just as powerless. She couldn't fight for herself. She couldn't save her friends. She couldn't even save herself. She could never be anyone's strength, not even her own. Strength? No. A weakness. She was a weakness.

Weaknesses, she had been taught, must be eliminated.

She was doing everyone a favor by dying.

Especially him.

She closed her eyes and fell back in a deliberately weak motion, lying still on the stone. A weakness.

Yes. Everyone would be better off without her.

((EEEEK, another depressing one. ;; I promise that the next one'll be funny again. I PROMISE. Remind me if I forget, m'kay? Anyone has a request, feel free!

Until next time!

-Silence))


	14. For the Sake of Sake

**For the Sake of Sake**

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, YOU GAVE HER SAKE?!" Ichigo screamed.

Keigo flinched, and squirmed, turning bright red as he made some attempt at mumbling excuses. Next to him on the doorstep of the Kurosaki home, Rukia stared blankly at the sky, and then giggled at something. Ichigo didn't even _want_ to know what. He also didn't want to know where a bunch of fifteen-year-olds had even gotten sake. "Ano, Ichigo," Keigo began hopefully, "It was sort of an accident."

"How do you accidentally give someone three entire bottles of sake?!" Ichigo demanded, glancing around and yanking Rukia inside. She giggled blankly, and then poked him in the side. She hadn't hit him for grabbing her like that? Oh _kami_. It was worse than he'd even feared.

"Well, ano..." Keigo trailed off, but Ichigo's glare intimidated him into talking. "Well-" he began again, stumbling in his own words in his haste. "-ano, we were at the end of the year party, right, the one you wouldn't go to, right, and then, we sort of... Er..."

"WHAT did you do?!"

"Wepouredsakeinthepunchbutwedidn'tthinkshe'dhavesomuchpunch!"

Ichigo continued glaring at him. "She can't have had _that_ much punch. You said she drank _three entire bottles of sake_. Spicing up the punch doesn't do _this_," he snapped, pointing at Rukia, who now appeared to be attempting to eat her own fist, still giggling madly at absolutely nothing. "Stop that, Rukia," he added, pulling her hand away from her mouth. She pouted at him, and then said, unsteadily, "Yerrr a big, fat meaaaaaaaannnieeee, Strawberry-chaaaannnn..."

Good _lord._

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER, DAMMIT?!"

"Okay, okay!" Keigo cringed. "We sort of replaced all the punch with sake and then... dared her to drink all of it... We thought she'd realize it wasn't punch and then say no!"

Ichigo was on the verge of murder at this point, and was glad only that his family had decided to go to the beach for the weekend, to leave him and Rukia to their end of the year festivities. His father had said that with a wink, and had promptly found that his nose was a rather interesting shape. "Why did you bring her here?!" he asked, more out of confusion than anything.

"Well... 'cause I didn't know where she lived, and nobody else seemed to, and we figured you'd know... Since you're always hanging around with her... And I thought that maybe you could use her drunkenness to your advantage so as to-"

Ichigo slammed the door in his face.

- - - - - -

"IIIIIIIIICCCCCCHHHHHIIIIIIIII..." Rukia squacked disgruntledly, banging feebly on his back with her fists. She was currently draped over his shoulder as he carried her up the stairs. "Lemme gooooooooo, you big meeeeeaaaaaaannnnniiiiieeeeee..."

"No way," the Ichi in question responded flatly. He was going to have to find some tranquilizer or something, because if a drunk Rukia was anything like a sugar-high Rukia, there would be _big_ trouble if she was allowed to run around as she liked. Something would blow up sooner or later, and the fire department already really hated him after the whole I-think-I'll-put-a-fork-in-the-toaster incident (by Rukia, of course- he had expected her to be zapped and had thus tried to stop her, but he hadn't really expected the toaster to _explode_). He would rather it didn't come to that, so he was just going to put her in bed and leave her there. Maybe block the door with something really heavy and hope she didn't use kidou on it or somehow get out of her gigai and phase through. Though, being Rukia, she'd probably break a hole in the wall just for the heck of it. Especially if her mind was muddled. It wasn't even all that clear in the first place...

But things never went as planned, because Ichigo's life was not that easy, and Rukia seemed to have decided to see if she could blow _Ichigo_ up. Literally. Because the back of his shirt was now on fire. And Rukia was nowhere to be found.

After putting the fire out (thankfully, the little she-devil had decided to use some sort of fire that didn't actually set Ichigo himself on fire- just his shirt), Ichigo went to look for Rukia. Damn, she could be anywhere, destroying anything- _eating _anything. He really had no clue what she would be doing. He just hoped she hadn't left the house!

He had expected to find her somewhere random- inside the fridge, for example. He had expected that she would be halfway through demolishing her hiding place. He had _not_ expected her to be hanging upside-down from the ceiling (somehow) and then jump on his head when he wasn't looking.

He screamed like a little girl and fell over.

If Rukia remembered this tomorrow, she would never let him live it down. As it was, she sat on top of his chest, and stared avidly down at him, making all sorts of strange faces, apparently just to annoy him. It worked.

"GET OFF OF ME, DAMMIT!" he shouted, realizing how awkward this would look to anyone walking in who didn't know the situation. He just hoped to hell that his father hadn't installed spy cameras. It would be just like him.

He expected her to yell at him, or, if she was as really drunk as he thought she was, to giggle and possibly spit in his eye. He did not expect her to look at him, suddenly frown, and reach out to touch his face. He certainly did not expect her to do this and then burst out crying.

The situation: Rukia, dead-drunk, was sitting on his chest as he lay on his back on the floor (probably bruised from the fall, possibly with a concussion from her flying attack to his head), sobbing.

Weird as hell.

He stared up at her, but she seemed to have forgotten that he was there, and only continued crying. This was particularly disturbing because Rukia did not cry. He had only ever seen her cry twice, and once he had been bleeding to death on the pavement and the other time she had been in the middle of being executed. Sort of. (Well, she had been in the middle of an _attempted_ execution, and that was reason enough to cry a little, wasn't it?)

Ooooooooookay. This situation had gone from disturbing to confusing.

Ichigo had _so_ many questions about this situation, but he wasn't sure he wanted any of the answers. So he decided not to ask, despite the obvious fact that there was no way she'd be coherent enough to give him the answers.

"Rukia?" he said instead. After a moment, she sniffed, and looked back at him. Immediately, she stopped crying, and then stood and started jumping up and down- still on his chest.

"ICCCCCEEEE CCCCRRRREEEEEEAAAAAAMMMMMMM!" she screamed, for no apparent reason.

This was really scary.

"Okay, Rukia," he said, hoping she would calm down, "Okay. Now, please just get off of me and we'll go upstairs and find Chappy, right?" He had no idea what prompted him to say this, other than probably the fact that Chappy might have been the only incentive he could give her to get her off of him.

At the mention of the fictional rabbit's name, Rukia clapped her hands excitedly and jumped off, swaying a little before she fell over. On her face.

"Rukia?!"

"Bunnies," came the muffled reply.

He didn't want to know.

"Okay, Rukia, we're going upstairs now," he hazarded, picking her up again and setting her over his shoulder. "You're not gonna set me on fire this time, right?"

He thought he heard something along the lines of "meeflewimps" but decided to disregard it and treat it as an agreement.

"Right," he said in a voice he hoped sounded more confident than he felt that she wouldn't try to blow him up.

They got upstairs without incident, but once there Ichigo was presented with a problem: its name was Kon.

"NEEEEEEEEEE-SAAAAAANNNNN!" the stuffed toy shrieked, and prepared himself to launch at Rukia- only to find her in Ichigo's arms, possibly drooling. (Ichigo himself decided not for the first time that he really didn't want to know.) "Nee-san?" The crazed tone turned to one of puzzlement, and then to anger.

"ICHIGO! WHAT DID YOU DO TO-" Kon did not get to finish this sentence, because he found himself locked in the closet before you could scream 'Nee-san'.

Then it hit Ichigo.

Oh, _crap_. The Kon Factor had been neutralized, but now where the hell was he gonna put Rukia?!

There was only one choice, and he really didn't want to think about the consequences in the morning. Rukia was going to have to sleep in his bed.

She was going to murder him when she woke up. There was going to be a lot of explaining to do.

But for now... he really just needed to get her to sleep somewhere, before the house actually did go up in flames. Or she passed out in a really inconvenient place.

Inside the fridge, for example.

So it was this or... well, it was this.

Okay, then. As carefully as he could, he pulled back the comforter, lay her down, and covered her again. She mumbled about something involving bunnies and squirmed a little to get comfortable. He thought absently that she was _really _cute when she wasn't trying to kill him, and then _really_ wondered where that had come from.

Ah, well.

He turned to leave- he had to make sure she hadn't broken anything when she disappeared- but looked back when he heard her say something again, and saw her frown. Worried that she was going to wake up and burst into tears again, he walked back over.

"Rukia?"

She opened one eye, smiled a little, and closed the eye again, turning over onto her side to face the wall.

Relieved that there had been no further incident, Ichigo walked to the door. As he flipped off the light, he thought he heard her speak again.

A sigh. "Love you, Strawberry-chan..." And then there was silence.

But he might have only imagined it.

((It turned into fluff. XP But, hey, I promised you humor, and here it is. Yay! -dances- Isn't it _cute_? Ooh, he is gonna get _killed_ in the morning before Rukia knows what really went on! -laughs sadistically- Okay, well, that's it from me for now.

Requests always welcome!

-Silence))


	15. Go Figure

**Go Figure (For the Sake of Sake II)**

((C'mon- you didn't think I wasn't gonna do this, did you? XP))

It was a Saturday morning, and nine o'clock when the screaming began. This screaming was accompanied by dull thuds as things hit the wall and, occasionally, Ichigo's face.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" said Ichigo shouted, trying to hide behind a lamp because running away was out of the question and going _toward_ the psycho probably wouldn't help. At all. Except maybe help her get her hands around his throat.

"WHAT DO YOU _THINK_ IS WRONG WITH ME?!" Rukia shrieked in reply, picking up a dangerously heavy-looking book. "WHY AM I _HERE?!_"

Well, there _was_ the little, teeeeeeeeeny-weeny detail that she had no clue why she had woken up _in his bed_, and that she probably had the hangover of the century, but why would that make her crazy? (Uh, _duh_...)

"BECAUSE YOU DRANK THREE BOTTLES OF SAKE, MORON!" Probably not the best response, there...

"SO YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF THAT, DID YOU?!" See? I told you that that was a stupid thing to say...

The book whizzed half an inch past his head and smashed a hole in the wall.

"NO, YOU LITTLE-"

Where had she gotten a brick?!

"KON WAS IN THE CLOSET, SO WHERE WAS I GONNA PUT YOU?!"

Rukia paused halfway through ripping out a large section of the wall with her bare hands, probably to use as more ammunition.

"So you didn't do anything?"

"NO, you idiot! _You_ tried to set me on _fire_, so I put you to sleep!"

"Why not in the closet?"

"Because Kon assumed the same thing you did and went insane! I had to lock him in there!"

"Why not in Yuzu and Karin's room?"

And it hit him.

WHY HADN'T HE THOUGHT OF THAT?! If she wasn't going to strangle him, he'd probably do it for her. He was a MORON!

"Uh..."

"So you DID do something?!" The wall was looking dangerously close to collapsing entirely around her furious fingers.

"No!" he yelped immediately. "Let go of the wall, dammit, you're gonna bring the house down!"

Startled, Rukia looked over to where the wall was groaning under the irresistible force of her hands. She was, of course, only as strong as a normal human in the gigai, but with her training and powered by fury as she was, that puny strength was much more potent. "Oh," she said mildly, and let go. The house nearly sighed in relief.

"So what did happen?"

"You went to the end of the year party because Keigo asked you, and they tricked you into drinking three bottles of sake!"

"Geez, you sound so startled... It isn't like I haven't drunk alchohol before..."

"Three bottles?!"

"My head _is_ killing me... Metaphorically, since I'm-"

"Don't even start on that dead thing. Anyway, you tried to demolish the house, so I tried to get you to go to sleep. But, like I said, Kon was in the closet and it didn't... er... occur to me to put you in Yuzu and Karin's room..." His voice trailed off into a mutter and a blush.

Rukia raised a mocking eyebrow at him, and then winced because that expression wasn't particularly comfortable. It was strange that she hadn't been bothered at all by the apparent hangover until she got over her rage and discovered why it was there. Of course, it was Rukia. Completely unpredictable.

"Ow."

"I told you."

"Shut up."

And, of course, the moron grudgingly (and yet also anxiously, somehow...) became the nursemaid. And, later, Rukia laughed at him about it. Go figure.

((Really pointless, but I liked doing the screaming part. XP I'll give you something better, next time.

-Silence))


	16. Spiders and Butterflies

((Oh em gee, the songfic I thought I would never do... Do you realize I usually hate songfics?))

**Spiders and Butterflies (Thanks for the Memories)**

_I'm gonna make you bend and break  
(It sends you to me without wait)  
Say a prayer but let the good times roll  
In case God doesn't show  
(Let the good times roll, let the good times roll)  
And I want these words to make things right  
But it's the wrongs that make the words come to life  
"Who does he think he is?"  
If that's the worst you got  
Better put your fingers back to the keys_

It never seemed to matter how long it had been. It could be days, weeks, years, decades- he would always try to pull her back to him, and he would always (mostly) fail. As lame as it sounded, she was like a butterfly. No matter how much he chased her around with a net (not that he would EVER do something as sissy as that) she would always float on the breeze, just past his reach. What he really needed to do was stand still, look cute and unthreatening, and wait for her to land on him, just to prove she could. He knew what he should do, but something about her just kept him from doing it.

So he chased her around with his sissy butterfly net, hoping that he could somehow catch her without crushing her. It was impossible, but damned if he wasn't going to try it anyway. There had been that one time, and he would never forgive himself for it- that one time he had caught up with her. Excited by the victory he was about to gain, he dropped the net and reached out to grab her with his bare hands-

-and almost kept her from ever flying again.

He hadn't meant to do it, but once he had... he felt powerful in a way he never had before. And that scared him. Would he do it again?

One night and one more time  
Thanks for the memories  
even though they weren't so great  
"He tastes like you only sweeter."  
One night, yeah, and one more time  
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories  
"See, he tastes like you only sweeter." 

But what really drove him crazy was the fact that someone else just swooped in, out of nowhere, and succeeded where he himself had failed. (It was the kid's hair, he just knew it. Maybe she had orange-radar or something. Maybe red just wasn't her thing. It certainly wasn't the brat's oh-so-charming personality.) This guy didn't even _have_ a goddamn net, and she practically threw herself at him. It was so unfair. Maybe it was what he deserved, considering the way he'd grabbed at her last time. (Compared with how the usurper had handled her- just the way you should treat a butterfly. Who the hell would want to hurt a butterfly? Damn, you should protect butterflies! Not that this kid had anything on him, of course... Dumb luck. And that hair.) But she had provoked him. It wasn't as though she didn't know that they would have to come after her. It wasn't as though he had wanted to crush her, to drag her away and yank off her wings. He had been confused- give a guy a break!

Okay, so that was the most pathetic excuse he had ever heard in his life and he knew it. He had been confused, certainly, but... hell, you don't kill someone out of confusion! The fact that he had been confused about the killing itself didn't make the crime any less.

He just wanted _one_ more chance. For the love of god, couldn't he just have one more chance?

_  
Been looking forward to the future  
But my eyesight is going bad  
And this crystal ball  
It's always cloudy except for  
When you look into the past (look into the past)  
One night stand (one night stand off)  
_

But now all he had of her were their memories (or rather his memories of her). And, hell, they were terrible memories. Running, stealing, nearly getting killed- everything about their past was crap. And then there was the more recent shit, which was even worse. Damn, damn, damn his stupidity. All he could see of them was the past. Whenever he tried to think of a future between them, it consisted of their current, awkward status quo. Even though she thought he didn't, he saw the way she stared out the window. She was free now, but her gaze just screamed for something more that he could never provide. He tried. He really did. He tried to make her forget, tried his damndest, but every time he thought he was close to making her forget, something would remind her and she would be gone again, somewhere he couldn't reach her.

_  
One night and one more time  
Thanks for the memories  
even though they weren't so great  
"He tastes like you only sweeter."  
One night, yeah, and one more time  
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories  
"See, he tastes like you only sweeter."  
_

And how was that other guy better than him? Okay, okay, so _technically_ Orangey had gotten there first, had brushed away the web and knocked the spider from its prey. (The most terrifying thing about that episode was the way his little butterfly had even stopped struggling against her binds, had closed her eyes and waited for the spider's jaws to close around her. The butterfly he used to know would never have done that, and he couldn't help but suspecting with a sinking feeling that it was partially his own fault. After all, if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that, if he had been in her position and everyone he loved had been trying to feed him to that spider, he'd probably have given up, too. If the people you cared about would do that to you, there must be _something_ wrong with your existence, or so the thinking went.)

It just wasn't fair.

_  
They say I only think in the form of crunching numbers  
In hotel rooms collecting page six lovers  
Get me out of my mind and get you out of those clothes  
I'm a liner away from getting you into the mood, whoa_

Yeah, he'd been in the eleventh division. Eleventh division guys (were there even any girls- other than Yachiru and, arguably, Yumichika- in the eleventh?) had certain reputations for what they did with butterflies, if you catch the drift. And that wasn't just referring to literal butterflies, which they all crushed and ate because they were manly like that (even Yachiru, though she did stare delightedly at them first, but not Yumichika- apparently, it wasn't 'beautiful' to powder a butterfly). Ahem, ahem.

...ahem.

Let's not go there, shall we?

But that shouldn't have chased away this particular butterfly. This particular butterfly had grown up the same way he had, was just the type to obsess over bunnies... and then eat them. Not that she'd actually ever done that, of course, but he knew she wondered what they'd taste like with that human stuff- ketchup. Hell, they'd eaten weirder things back when they had to steal to survive. Bunnies were nothing.

One night and one more time  
Thanks for the memories  
even though they weren't so great  
"He tastes like you only sweeter."  
One night, yeah, and one more time  
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories  
"See, he tastes like you only sweeter." 

Maybe it was more than the kid's hair. (After all, his own hair was pretty damn awesome, red or not. He was very proud of his hair. And his eyebrows, whatever his beautiful little butterfly said about them. He could forgive her for that comment, because he had been in the process of placing her ever-so-carefully in front of the spider's hungry jaws.) Maybe it had something to do with the butterfly's memories. After all, other than the hair, that first one had looked just like the new one, and lovely little butterfly had never really been able to give up bad memories. Perhaps that was why she clung so desperately to the good ones she had made with the orange kid.

One night and one more time (One more night, one more time)  
Thanks for the memories  
even though they weren't so great  
"He tastes like you only sweeter."  
One night, yeah, and one more time (One more night, one more time)  
Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memories  
"See, he tastes like you only sweeter." 

So he settled for a moment snatched here and there, and once in a while, when she was sad enough, maybe a night or two. His butterfly wouldn't be caught so easily, no matter how much he wanted to hold onto her. And somehow he knew that he would never be able to keep her. Butterflies chose where they landed, and she hadn't chosen him. So he had to let go. Comfort her when he could, try to worm his way back into the esteem he'd so easily lost (like a complete moron), and try to be gentle with the damn butterfly. (Now if only she'd stop kicking him.)

Now that that was decided, all Renji had to do was wait for Ichigo to die already. After all, the kid was a human, and Rukia was a shinigami. It wouldn't work out until the playing field was leveled. And until it could work out, Renji wouldn't have an excuse to beat the living shit out of Ichigo and tell him that he'd sure as hell better not turn out to be another spider.

((All right, everyone, here's Silence's RANT OF THE MONTH (contains many spoilers):

All you freaky Inoue-haters/advocates who say strange things.

A) Inoue is an important character. Damn, I love her! She's adorable, even if she is a bit of a moron! (Seriously, did she really believe that her friends would be left alone if she went to Hueco Mundo without a fight?) And she's necessary. And she has pretty haaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir. -watches in fascination- So pretty. 'D Ahem. So stop insulting Inoue, because she has feelings too. Okay, so maybe she doesn't, since she's a fictional character, but she deserves as much respect as the next character.

Unless the next character happens to be Tousen, because that guy's just an annoying bastard. Or Aizen, because... DUDE, HE SNAPPED HIS FREAKING GLASSES! He can't SEE! (Has anyone else noticed that his squad seems to be made of people who can't see? Tousen's blind, Gin doesn't open his eyes, and Aizen himself snapped his freaking glasses. I'm sure they DO occasionally mistake mops for Ulquiorra, just because. And, against Aizen as well... he ran his hand over his hair and it went all slicked back like that? DUDE! When's the last time he took a BATH?! NASTY!) Oh, yes, and he's a bastard, too, because he hurt Momo-chan, and who wants to hurt the cutie? AND HE HURT TOSHIROU-CHAN, AND THAT IS UNFORGIVEABLE. And RENJI-CHAN. And RUKIA-CHAN. AND... -sobs- KAIEN-DONO. Man I loved that guy...

...ahem. . ;;

B) For you people who watched Rukia-chan (APPARENTLY, I SHALL NOT GIVE UP HOPE) die in chapter 269 and said 'YA! SCOR 1 4 ORIHIME!': You are an illiterate n00b, and really need to go back to elementary school. Also, if you really liked Orihime/Inoue/whatever you want to call her, you wouldn't watch her friends die and say yay for her. Do you honestly think she would think it a good thing for her friend to be killed trying to save her? Honestly, people! She adores Rukia-chan. And, even if you want to believe that Orihime is some sort of sick, self-centered monster who would wish death on Rukia so she could get at Ichigo, (which, by the way, makes you NOT AN ORIHIME FAN) then consider how Rukia's death would/will effect Ichigo. The kid's gonna have some sort of breakdown, whether you think he loves her or not. She's still his FRIEND. And if Orihime loved Ichigo, she wouldn't wish that sort of pain on him no matter what. (Personally, I'm of the opinion that she is simply infatuated with him- as Rukia oh-so-wisely pointed out in "Romeo and Juliet," you can't love someone without knowing them. And man, Orihime can't even talk to him properly. GO ISHIORI. Because the Princess and the Geek- though have you ever noticed that manga geeks tend to be as hot as the not-geeks? And I don't like to stereotype, but whatever- are sooooooo kawaii together.)

Okay, that was my random rant.

I'd actually like comments on the rant, just to see if anyone actually read it, but whatever.

Sorry this wasn't funny. Oh, and yes, I know I've been gone forever. Fell out of the Bleach fandom for a bit, but I'm back now. And I was listening to Thanks for the Memories (don't want to hear about how you think FOB sucks, because some of their stuff is good and this is my fic so shut up) and I thought of Renji, 'cause a lot of the lyrics fit him. And he's squishy. D

Okay, I'm done.

-Silence))


	17. Helen of Troy

((I was gonna wait to put this up, but... I can't.))

**Helen of Troy **(AKA She's Mine, Bitch)

It drove Ichigo crazy, walking through the halls of Sereitei with Rukia. He absolutely _hated_ it. It wasn't about any problem he had with the company; in fact, he loved doing things with Rukia. (And he is going to ignore the way you just interpreted that sentence, thank you very much, because if he didn't ignore it he'd have to kill you. Anyway.) It had taken him seventy frickin' years to die and get his ass to Soul Society, and as much as he didn't want to admit it he'd missed that midget all those years. Of course, the second he'd gotten there he'd had to go through the huge uproar that ensued over what the _hell_ they were going to do with him, which kept him from seeing her for a really, really long time after that.

They'd had seventy years to figure it out! Weren't these bastards supposed to be organized?

But anyway, he'd been subjected to a crash course in how to deal with being a real, full-time Shinigami and then a big-ass scuffle over where to put him and how to rank him. Half the divisions were clamoring for him to join up, and the other half were screaming at everyone else to keep him the fuck away from them. They'd eventually decided that he had to be Captain of something, since putting him under anybody else would be a hideous joke. Problem was figuring out where, exactly, to make him captain. No open positions... It took forever, but in the end Ukitake, whose condition had been deteriorating those seventy years, decided to step down. He was too ill, he explained with his customary gentle smile and amidst a chorus of enthusiastic protests, to really be of good use any more. He was only a burden on his squad at this point, according to him, and it was well past time that he stopped to take care of himself.

Yama-jii had basically been forced by an angry mob to let the guy stay on the payroll as an honorary officer, but Ichigo became Captain of the Thirteenth Division.

Which was freakin' weird, by the way. Especially considering his closest officers. Sentarou and Kiyone were still third-seats, and still as completely _nuts_ as ever (though Ichigo supposed he should consider himself lucky that he wasn't forced to become an underling in the Eleventh- now there were some serious headcases). And then there was his Vice-Captain.

Rukia, of course. She'd always deserved it, whatever her fucking crazy of a brother insisted.

And that brought him back to the original problem, which was going anywhere with her.

He was fine with her chatter, he was fine with her coldness, he was fine with her workaholic tendencies- hell, he was fine with her freaking bunnies. It was... she wasn't even the problem, really.

It was all those... others.

Those others always watched them, stared after the pair of officers wherever they went. Their eyes followed the trail of her robes, hungrily searching for another glimpse of pale skin. Helen of Troy walkin' down the street couldn't have drawn more attention.

He could _feel_ the insurrection spark to life. It flashed from face to face, and every man she glided by, attached or unattached, had the want plain on their faces. (Some of the women, too, but he sure as hell didn't want to go there.) They drank in the ebony wisp of her hair, the flashing cobalt of her eyes, and always the creamy white flesh, wherever they could see it. It was funny that Ichigo had never noticed before. Perhaps it was because every other time he'd seen Rukia among her peers (or at least the moderately sane ones), he'd been trying to keep them from killing her.

Maybe that was just some weird extension of this freaky obsession they all seemed to have with her. If they couldn't get her for themselves, then sure, let's have her executed.

Fuckin' nutcases, all of them.

Which, he told himself, was why he grabbed her in broad daylight and kissed her full on the mouth. His behavior was totally justified. If she was taken, then they wouldn't eye-stalk her like that and they wouldn't try to off her. She only slapped him because she didn't _understand_ that.

Ah, well. If that was the case, he was gonna have to kick a helluva lotta ass to keep her for himself- safe, he meant safe. To keep her _safe._ Of course.

((I've been wanting to write this one for a while now. Incredibly frickin' fun to write, was this one. I hope y'all like it. Sorta funny.

-Silence))


	18. Maid of Honor

**Maid of Honor **(For Nowshin, follow-up to Helen of Troy and, indirectly, Spiders and Butterflies)

"..and you'll have seven children and you'll name them Strawberry and Joe and Yuki and..."

Rukia sighed. She was certainly glad to see Orihime again, but the eighty four years which had passed since she last saw the other woman for any decent length of time hadn't changed her at _all_. At the moment, her rant was, disturbingly, about Orihime's plans for Rukia's and Ichigo's wedding (other than that one, random seize-and-kiss-the-Kuchiki episode Rukia had experienced _in broad daylight_, Ichigo hadn't made any presumptions so Rukia hadn't had to deal with it), of all ridiculous things, and everything afterward. For the next thousand years.

"...OH! And for their birthdays I'll make onigiri with LEEK SAUCE and WHIPPED CREAM and..."

Maybe going to visit with her old friends at the academy had been a bad idea. Though she did feel the need to beat the crap out of all those blue-and-white clad morons leering at Orihime's, ahem, assets, which were still entirely obvious even through the thick cloth of her student's robes. So maybe she would find them later and-

"...the best part about it will be the CLAM CAKES, because we all know that..."

It was just a good thing that Ichigo wasn't actually _there_. He would probably have had a heart attack after the first three words out of Orihime's mouth. (These words were, "OH, HELLO, KUCHIKI-SAN!" and were closely followed by "where's your ring? He did give you a ring, didn't he? HE HASN'T MARRIED YOU YET? OH, WE MUST BEGIN PLANNING IMMEDIATELY...!") But the new Captain of the Thirteenth Division was very, very busy running away from Zaraki Kenpachi, who had decided that today was the perfect day for a rematch. Again. Though Rukia had been very busy with real work- after all, she was Vice-Captain now, and despite having had the same rank ever since the Winter Battle ended, paperwork just never seemed to stop piling up- when it had been suggested that she babysit Yachiru while her Ken-chan was off playing with Ichii, she had decided that it was also the perfect day to pay a visit to the academy and her old friends.

They were all there now, except of course for Ichigo, who had randomly decided to die ten years earlier than everyone else, probably because of the way Isshin kept returning to the living world to poke fun at his son for being old and wrinkly. Even Ishida was a Shinigami-in-training, which was very strange since in life he had been a Quincy. But no matter. He had only been following his wife, after all.

Oh, good gods, Rukia hoped that Orihime wasn't planning a remake of her wedding to Ishida. The food alone had given Rukia nightmares for a year. And that _dress_ Ishida had made... Covered in frills and scary as hell. It was a miracle he'd even been able to find his bride's face underneath all the white fabric. Rukia didn't even want to think about the dress Ishida had made for her. Renji had seemed to like it, though. (And several other men, apparently- actually, she had had to turn down several strange offers that day. She suspected that there would have been more, except after the first few Renji and, strangely enough, Ichigo, had started trailing her everywhere and glowering the hell out of any other male who came near.) It had actually been a nice color, about as close a match, Ishida had said, to her eyes as was physically possible, but it had been so _low-cut. _And clingy.

"...and Uryuu could make your wedding dress!" Orihime gasped, throwing the back of her hand against her forehead with some drama. "You could forego the usual white and it could be that pretty blue color again! Except this time there will be frills! And-"

"Inoue," Rukia interrupted her friend gently. Orihime's head snapped around to actually look at her. "Yes, Kuchiki-san?"

That was another thing. For some reason, the pair of them always referred to each other as 'Inoue' and 'Kuchiki-san.' It irked Rukia, a bit. Couldn't they be more... oh, intimate with words? They had been friends for decades.

"I mean, _Orihime_," Rukia corrected herself, voice firm. "I was just wondering- Why are you crying?!" Orihime had thrown herself at Rukia, nearly knocking the much smaller woman off balance, and was now sobbing into her shoulder.

"Orihime?!" It did sound right to finally call the other woman by her given name. Especially since she was _technically_ Ishida Orihime now, and had been. (Ichigo had sullenly insisted that there was no way in hell that he was going to call Orihime Ishida, since that was _Ishida's_ name, and he had kept calling her Inoue until he died. He would probably still call her that, in fact.)

"It's- it's just-" Orihime choked out, "I've always wanted to call you Rukia, but you- you kept calling me- calling me Inoue- and I didn't- didn't- didn't want to be rude...!" And she burst into a fresh round of tears.

Why. Why, why, why. But it was actually sort of funny...

"Orihime!" Rukia said, giggling. Orihime looked up at her- it was actually sort of nice to think of someone looking up at her rather than down, despite the fact that in this case it was only because Orihime was leaning all of her weight on Rukia's shoulder- with tearful gray eyes.

"Orihime, I only called you Inoue because you kept calling me Kuchiki-san!" She giggled again. "And _I_ didn't want to be rude."

Somehow, this led to the pair of women falling all over each other, laughing hysterically. (Rukia hoped like hell that no one told her brother about this.)

That was how, half an hour later, Ichigo found them, in a heap by the academy's wall, snorting with laughter every now and then as they exchanged anecdotes from the years they had been apart. (It was a good thing that Orihime had finished her classes for the day before Rukia came to visit.) He was still panting from all that running away, and he'd ripped the hem of his Captain's robes. Before Rukia could point that out, Orihime gasped wildly as though remembering an extremely important question and leapt to her feet, dragging a startled Rukia with her.

"RUKIA-CHAN!" she shrieked, scaring Ichigo, who jumped back a step. "May I be the maid of honor at your wedding?!"

Silence. Then-

"RUKIA'S GETTING MARRIED?!"

((Well, that was fun. In honor of Nowshin, who requested something along these lines. D I'm sorry the maid of honor hing only came in at the end, but... This is what I've got. xP

-Silence))


	19. Possession

**_NOTE: IN HONOR OF ONESHOT NUMBER TWENTY, I WILL BE WRITING A REQUEST FROM ONE OF MY READERS. REQUEST, REQUEST, REQUEST!_**

**Possession**

It only made sense that he would want her more than anyone else.

After all, she had changed his world, given him so much power, stolen his heart away and made the rain finally stop. And it had rained so much before. She had turned _everything_ around. He often thought that the moment she came into his life was the moment his existence truly began. And now everything was aligned, pointing straight at her. It was the only direction he could follow, the only path he could take. It was the way that things were supposed to be.

He loved her with everything he had, with every fiber of his being and every drop of his blood and every moment in time. She was his obsession. He could not remember a time he had thought of anything but her. Everything was her; every word from his mouth, every sound in his ear, every swing of his blade, it was all about her. That was why he was doing this. That was why he did everything. All for her, all about her, all her. When the rain did fall, every drop anticipated her name, crawling in her direction. When the sun shone, its rays curled toward her, searching.

It was a desperate sort of obsession.

"It's logical," he told her, his head tipped to one side. A grin had crept onto his face, unbidden, at her expression. Such a lovely expression it was, he noted as he held her. Wide eyes, so blue that they could have been violet, engulfed his attentions. Oh, he loved that look. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and take it, to put it in his pocket so that he could look at it whenever he wanted.

In the back of his mind he felt the other, railing for attention, screaming for power. Power, control, mine, keep. So loud in his head. But he ignored the voice, the raw screaming. It bothered him that the other called her name in such a way; she was _his_, and the other could never have her. She was his, she was his, she was _his._ The other fought against that. The other wanted to possess her! He would have none of it. She was his.

"Mine," he snarled to himself, and made sure that he hole he left in her chest was in the perfect place.

Now her heart was his. The other screamed and raved, but it was over now. The grin widened.

All mine.

My obsession, my possession.

---------------------------------------------------

((EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK! That was creepy. o.o I scaaaaared myself writing that one. Inspired by several fics I've read recently. In case you didn't get it, it was designed to look like Ichigo's point of view in the beginning and to fade into noticeable Hollowness. That would be when he started sounding like a freaking stalker. xP Sorry for this, but I just HAD to write it.

**_NOTE: IN HONOR OF ONESHOT NUMBER TWENTY, I WILL BE WRITING A REQUEST FROM ONE OF MY READERS. REQUEST, REQUEST, REQUEST!_**

-Silence))


	20. How to be Human 101

**How to be Human 101**

According to Kuchiki-fukutaichou, being a human was a lot of work. You had to figure out all those little things, like to wait to go across the road until the Magic Light turned green- but only the one in the shape of the walking person. If you didn't do that, you would be eaten by the road monsters. They were another thing Kuchiki-fukutaichou told us to look out for, but you had to act like big gobbling monsters were perfectly normal. And when they ate a person, so long as the person wasn't under them, they were probably fine. Kuchiki-fukutaichou told us that the monsters were called 'cars' and that people used them to get places, and that actually they weren't monsters at all, but made of clockwork.

What a wondrous place the living world must be! one of the newer students piped up in an excited voice. The more experienced classgoers sniggered.

Oh, no, Kuchiki-fukutaichou said, shaking her head. It isn't wondrous at all. It is fraught with perils such as escalators, windows, toasters, and orange-headed people lacking in all forms of sanity.

At that the newcomer looked scandalized. But don't you mean the hero Kurosaki Ichigo? she asked, puzzled and slightly offended. Apparently, she had taken a liking to the famous human-shinigami who had saved Soul Society. A lot of the girls had crushes on the mysterious man.

Well, after that question Kuchiki-fukutaichou had looked close to _giggling_. Everyone was shocked. Kuchiki-fukutaichou never made faces. Kuchiki-fukutaichou was always serious and polite, with an air that somehow conveyed both noble indifference and somewhat respectful toleration of our general stupidity. But calling Kurosaki Ichigo a hero nearly cracked her reserve. It took her a moment for her to get a hold of herself, but once she did she said that yes, she was talking about that man, 'sane' would not be the right word to use for him. Or even 'hero.' She knew Kurosaki Ichigo once, she told us. We all knew, of course. She was Kuchiki Rukia, and he was Kurosaki Ichigo, and he had first come to Soul Society in order to save her from an unjust execution. Afterwards she had earned nearly as much honor in battle as he had, and had saved his life several times in return. It was all in the history books.

What wasn't in the history books were the rumors. Everybody knew that Kuchiki Rukia and Kurosaki Ichigo _might_ have had a whirlwind romance, or they _might_ have hated each other into the darkest pits of hell. Or, pointed out the more stable of mind (which were rare enough in Soul Society), they might have just been friends and comrades-at-arms. Bah! replied the more romantically inclined. That's no fun.

But anyway, after the audible curiosity had died down in the class, Kuchiki-fukutaichou had gone on. Yes, Kurosaki Ichigo had been a great warrior, but now he was simply an aging human. In fact, she added, and we might have imagined it but we _thought_ we heard some smug humor in her voice, he was getting gray and wrinkly.

Then we had moved along with class.

Now, Kuchiki-fukutaichou went on, all insanity aside, the living world is a dangerous place. The out-of-the-ordinary must be accepted, but if someone tries to harm you you must remember to defend yourself. I am sure that you have all met your share of strange people, who either want to kill you or who are perverts and must be dispatched, and it is no different there. Humans are very haughty creatures, the males in particular, and will invariably believe that if they seem something they find attractive it is theirs to do with as they wish. So good judgement is essential. You must act sweet and kind and innocent, but be on the lookout for any suspicious behavior, just as you would be here in Soul Society.

We listened to a short talk on human school and its oddities and the similarities between it and the Academy, and then we were dismissed for the day. Before we left, she reminded us of her mantra: do not stick the fork in the toaster. It will explode.

None of us were quite sure yet what forks were, or toasters, but we were sure going to avoid them if we ever saw them.

After graduating the Academy, I was sent into the Tenth Division under Hitsugaya-taichou and Matsumoto-fukutaichou. I was disappointed not to be in the Thirteenth- after all, Kurosaki Ichigo had just died and was going to be the next taichou and Kuchiki-fukutaichou was of course still serving there- but I liked my new companions. Last week, I was told that I was going to go out into the human world with a small group for practice, and I was very excited. I told Hitsugaya-taichou not to worry about us, because I had taken Kuchiki-fukutaichou's How to be Human 101 back in the Academy.

For some reason, he only rolled his eyes and said that he hoped we were going to Karakura. Nobody there noticed strange things anymore.

-----------------------------------------

Zeldagamefan: No, it wasn't for Halloween. Though I do have a rather intriguing idea on that subject... If you check around the thirty-first, you miiiiight just find something special! -winkawink- (Don't get too excited, y'all, 'cause it depends on time, inspiration, and ability to refine the idea.)

Saber Girls: Thank you. -

VBaby22: Again with the Halloween comment! xP Well, I'm glad you liked it. And... hmm... funny I can do... Mostly Byakuya only shows up in my crackfics. o.o I find it hard to write him seriously. Perhaps I should write a crackfic...

Hearii: Oooh.. school dance class... I've never had to endure such humiliation, though I imagine that would be fun to write...

Sarah: Yes, I know that. Someone pointed it out soon after I'd written Foundation, but I decided that I liked it better this way. If slightly inaccurate, it's more poignant.

Final Flight: Well, it's a matter of the individual. Each person behaves differently when drunk. Some people get depressed, some get rowdy. Mel Gibson goes into anti-Semitic rants, Kira forgets where he put his clothes. Alchohol only removes inhibitions (before you pass out- but that's only if you get _really_ into the drink). Mostly Rukia's inhibitions involve not acting like a complete nutter. So, (despite this being a crackfic) it is entirely possible that this is the way she would act when drunk. Thank you for the input, though.

CJ: Goodness gracious, that's an excellent idea. I hope you enjoyed this!

Humor Queen Merc: Ah, thank you! Yes, Orihime certainly gets her share of bashing. So does Rukia, but neither of them deserve it. Anyway. I'm already planning some sort of followup, so don't even worry about it!

All right, people.

Requests are still open, of course, since I love them, but what I'm going to write shall be in this order:

This chapter is How to be Human 101. The next request-fic shall be Dance Class, which will possibly be a crackfic and therefore involve Byakuya in some way. However, if Bya-kun doesn't show up, you can expect him afterwards. Happy-happy!

-Silence


	21. Lifeline

(Sorry this isn't that Dance Class story, but I'm not inspired by that yet.)

**Lifeline**

Orihime stood with her hands held behind her back, watching the battle and thinking that she was about to see the man she loved killed.

In the back of her mind, in the small part that wasn't preoccupied by this thought, she felt the lives of her friends, as soft and fragile as the thrum of butterfly wings, and knew that she should be doing something. She could feel that Sado-kun was alive, that Kuchiki-san was alive, and that if Kuchiki-san had been in her place, _she_ would have been doing something.

(Alive for now. Please don't die!)

Kurosaki-kun's leg snapped. Orihime tried to cry out, and that was all. Why wasn't she doing anything? She knew she should do something. She knew. Kurosaki-kun tumbled across the room. If Kuchiki-san had been in Orihime's place, she would have done something. She would have wrenched at the arms that held hers, bitten the fingers that held in her voice, kicked back at anything she could reach. If she couldn't free herself, she would have affected a ruse, fallen limp until she was released. Orihime knew that if she tried that, if she went limp as though fainting, she would be tossed aside in disgust, free to help. There was a horrific crunching sound as Kurosaki-kun's arm broke. A good bite would have freed her mouth if only for a moment, and Kuchiki-san would have used a shield, Tsubaki, a healing, anything.

Anything but just _watching._

(Why was she so useless?)

_"You have to stop comparing yourself with me."_ And there was Kuchiki-san's voice, clear as day! Orihime marveled at it, or at least the distracted back of her mind did. She remembered this conversation. It had been in Soul Society, in a break between training sessions. If she turned her head, Orihime felt that she would see Kuchiki-san sitting beside her on the grassy hill, hair brushed for once straight back from her face, held better in place by the same film of sweat that sheened her forehead, holding in her hand the water canteen and frowning.

(In her distracted, oblivious way, Orihime noted that Kuchiki-san really was pretty.)

In the memory, Kuchiki-san turned to look at her, and Orihime noted the worry in crystal-blue eyes. _"We are not the same, Inoue. You are not me, and I am not you. You are wonderful in ways that I could never hope to achieve. Ichigo _needs_ you, Inoue. Don't be discouraged."_ A wretched expression crossed her face, if only for a moment. It was gone quickly, and only careful practice allowed Orihime to see it at all. Orihime reached out and took her friend's small hand. Kuchiki-san looked away. _"Don't let me ruin things."_

_"Kuchiki-san, no!"_ Horror at the thought that Kuchiki-san would blame herself for Orihime's feelings, for her problems. Kuchiki-san always did that, blamed herself. Startled blue eyes met hers. _"No? No what?"_

_"Don't think that it's anything about you!"_ She was desperate to fix this, this whatever she had brought on them. _"You're perfect, Kuchiki-san, exactly what Kurosaki-kun needs! Not like me; I just get in the way. And I think that you-"_

Kuchiki-san's expression darkened, and her free hand snaked out to grab Orihime by the side of the face. _"Don't you dare,"_ she snarled. _"I told you to stop comparing yourself to me. _You_ are the one who will have to stay with Ichigo, and you know that. Inoue, I am a shinigami. I am over one hundred and fifty years old, and I am _dead._ Not only would it be improper for me to be... whatever it is you're thinking I am to him, but I would be a waste of his life. You know the way he does things. He gives everything. And I can't give anything back."_ Releasing Orihime's face, Kuchiki-san sat back and turned away again, but didn't take her hand away from Orihime's.

Orihime clung to her fingers like a lifeline.

(They were Kurosaki-kun's lifeline.)

_"Please, Kuchiki-san,"_ she said, voice catching in her throat. _"Please. I- I can't- don't talk this way. You're just as alive as I am, and Kurosaki-kun lo-"_

Kuchiki-san rose in a fluid motion, and the lifeline was gone.

(For both of them.)

_"We should get back to work."_ The small girl's stance was straight and tall as she glided away.

Orihime had never gotten to finish her sentence. If they ever got out of this, she would finish it. Kuchiki-san had to know. They both had to know. And Kurosaki-kun could not die. He would not die, not when they were in danger. And Kuchiki-san was so close to dying. One wrong move, and it was all over.

(Everything ended.)

Orihime knew that she should be doing something. But she knew that she could not compare to Kuchiki-san, whatever the other girl said, and her body would not obey her. So she watched, and thought of lifelines and butterfly wings.

((Randomness. Set in chapter 297 while Orihime's just kinda... standing... there... and watching... Uh... wow.

Rant time!

I just discovered that people hate Rukia, and I'm like.. wow. I was on Bleachexile, because that's where I get my scanlations, and I read through the comments for chapter 298... and everyone starts talking about how Rukia 'sucks' and how she's 'the most boring character in the series.'

Of course, I couldn't help but noticing that these people happened to be completely illiterate and seemed to have no idea of the meaning of the words 'capitalization' and 'punctuation' and 'grammar.' Please, people!

I just don't understand how people can hate Rukia so much. The consensus was 'we hate Rukia, she sucks.' And everyone started talking about how she was useless and annoying and boring.

And I'm just like, o.o What?

Well, I'm just incoherently upset about this. Anyone else care to supply a rant?

-Silence))


	22. Blue and Ownership

BLUE

The first time Byakuya saw Hisana, he looked into the pale, upturned face and thought, _What a sad little creature._

He didn't now remember why he had gone into Rukongai that day, or where he had seen her. All he remembered was glancing through the sea of people and being startled by that blue. Her eyes were so, so blue. And he had wanted that blue for himself. He had no right to want that color, but he did want it, and he wanted it badly. Suddenly that want changed into a plan, and that plan into midnight excursions into the slums and lies and always that fear that one day he would go to meet her and she would be gone. Rukongai was a dangerous place.

Then he had her, and he had that blue- in a way. She loved him, but she loved him in the grateful way a puppy, abandoned and starving, loves the one who takes it in out of the rain and feeds it. Her love for him was nothing compared to the desperate way he loved her. He had been Byakuya-sama until the day she died, and in the end he had always failed, because he had never been able to fix that last hurt.

The first time Byakuya saw Rukia, he only glanced at the set face and thought, _She looks nothing like her._

It was true. Hisana had not been a strong woman. She had always been the sad little creature Byakuya first thought her, gentle and docile and shy and kind and wilted. Her eyes were the clear blue of a crystal lake, sweet and softly mourning. Rukia was not like Hisana, and it showed in her face. Her jaw was determined where Hisana's had been delicate, her brows had been furrowed in unconscious defiance where Hisana's had been upturned with sorrow, and her eyes were the blue of a dawn sky before the snowstorm.

But, in a way, Byakuya had been wrong.

He thought that Rukia had been stamped into a hard mold by her life. She and the genteel, graceful Hisana, he thought, could not be more different.

Perhaps the problem was the way he avoided looking too closely. Perhaps he was afraid to look in case he saw something that made him remember. He wanted so badly to forget. So all he saw was that set little jaw and those furrowed little brows, and all he looked for was the coming storm.

The day Rukia achieved shikai with Sode no Shirayuki, Byakuya managed to get a look at her without anyone noticing- appearances had to be kept up, after all- and he thought, _She is nothing like Hisana._

For a second he found that little light in her eyes that was the sun.

When Rukia came home, dripping wet and covered in someone else's blood, Byakuya nearly died because as he looked into those tortured, frightened blue eyes he saw Hisana. And he hated it.

Then Rukia was sent away, and the next time he saw her she was tortured and frightened again, but not for herself, because nothing had ever been for herself. That was like Hisana, too. And he hated it even more, because he was sure that it was his fault.

He wouldn't look at her, because if he looked at her he would see too much of her sister to bear in that stormy sky.

Much later, he wondered if the first time the Kurosaki boy saw her he had been startled by that blue.

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OWNERSHIP

Byakuya was astonished at the _fury_ he felt when that filthy arrancar dared to turn his gaze on Rukia.

How dare he, how dare he, how dare he even _think_ of looking at her, of hurting her? The speed he used, the lack of thought involved, in jumping in front of her- because she was so vulnerable now, frozen in ice, a single blow would break her into a thousand pieces and the same ice that kept her from bleeding to death would shatter her- almost frightened him. It wasn't a conscious plan. It was automatic. Of course he would defend her. How could he have ever doubted it?

He was astonished at the way his heart clenched in terror knowing that if he didn't finish this quickly she would die. That if she died now she would die not knowing the fury Byakuya felt at the idea of someone harming her. He wanted desperately for her to know about that fury. After last time, after what he had done, he was surprised that she would even look at him. Of course, she never looked him in the eye. Long ago he had decided that distance between them was best. He was, after all, the head of the Kuchiki household, and she was what? A street rat. Worthless. Dirty. Low.

Byakuya hated those words, those strings of syllables that kept her from him, and the depth of that hatred shocked him as well. How dare anyone think those words of her?

What astonished him, what terrified him, what shocked him the most was how focused he was on Rukia. Not Hisana. He did not look at her and see her sister, and he did not want to protect her because she was Hisana's sister.

He wanted to protect her because she was _his_ sister. And he realized with horror that he loved her in the way Hisana had once loved him: the love of a kicked puppy seeing a gentle face for the first time- then again, Hisana's love had been much more valuable, because she _never_ would have hesitated to save him had the situation arisen, and Byakuya had hesitated.

Once, in a time not so long ago when he wouldn't have thought about this, he would have doubted that Rukia loved him at all. Now he knew that she gave him her own kicked-puppy love in the only way she knew how, showed him that she could love him anyway by hurting herself with his distance, by following his rules. Now he regretted the chasm he had forced between them from the first time he lay eyes on her and found the blue he had spent five years looking for, the blue he saw darken in sadness every time he came home with nothing to show his beautiful little wife. The blue that, with the devotion of a puppy, forgave him every time.

Rukia's blue was just as forgiving, but she was like her sister, and, he knew, like her brother as well: never forgiving to herself.

Through the years, Byakuya had tortured that blue in ways even he didn't understand, and that blue had tortured him right back. One of them, he knew, was a kicked puppy on the end of a chain. He simply wasn't sure which was which.

((Weird as hell thing I wrote at midnight, so don't even ASK. It's mostly ByaHisa (which I think, by the way, is SO FREAKING ADORABLE I COULD EXPLODE), but there's an eeeeeeeeeeency weency bit of IchiRuki at the veeeeeeeeeeery end of Blue if you squint. With a magnifying glass. So I stuck it in here. xP

But anyway.

I seem to have sparked an insurrection with my rant last chapter, and let me remind you all that I LOVE Orihime... she's just a little silly sometimes. So... Yeah.

Luv y'all! (By the way, sorry this wasn't a request, I'm just writing things as they occur.)

-Silence))


	23. Famous Last Words

**Famous Last Words**

In a crystallized world of horror, there was silence, marred only by the light wind that brushed against her face and stirred his hair in its orderly spikes. They faced each other, swords drawn, stances wary.

For a moment, she simply stared at him. Then, slowly, she let her sword drop from her fingers. She couldn't do it. She couldn't do it again.

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. Immediately he thrashed, trying to shake her off though he couldn't touch her, lifting her off the ground and tossing her from side to side. Her power flowed off of her in unbelievable quantities, gossamer as silk but impenetrable as steel. She hadn't even known she had this much power, and she noted it with a giddy feeling of unreality. She had to concentrate on hanging on, keeping the flow steady. If she didn't, he would kill her. It was simple as that. She couldn't kill him, so if she couldn't stop him he would kill her.

After a moment, he stopped fighting and relaxed. She stayed tense, careful for any trick.

"...R-Rukia...?" Relief flooded her veins. That was him. That was his voice. There was no doubt about it.

"Ichigo," she sighed in response, relaxing against him with her toes still off the ground- he was so much taller than she... In that moment, her defenses wavered and went down.

"You're a fool." The hiss barely reached her ears. What she heard was she quiet, almost soothing _sssshk_ of blade through flesh. Strangely unperturbed, she looked down at herself and saw his sword bridging the distance between them. She felt nothing, only smelled the blood as it welled. She looked up dreamily into his face and saw no remorse, only that grin she loved so much, turned on her with blackened eyes and flashing teeth.

Only vaguely did she feel the falling, and reflected with quiet remorse that now she knew how poor, betrayed Hinamori had felt.

"Goodbye, little pretty." A cackle of a laugh. "Parting is such sweet sorrow."

That was something he would say, if, she noted confusedly, it had really been him. He liked the writing of the man who had written that, didn't he? The laugh, she reflected, had ruined the last thing she would ever hear. How disappointing.

"Yes," she murmured against the pavement. Comforting darkness rushed over her.

Parting is such sweet sorrow...


	24. Diabolical Scheme Take One

**Diabolical Scheme, Take One**

Byakuya had, as he had heard people say, a diabolical scheme. He pondered the phrase, and found it good. Not something he'd normally use, but it would probably seem accurate from the view of everyone else who heard of it. The truth was that he had grown frustrated with both his fruitless search for a suitable husband for Rukia and with the Kurosaki boy's seeming inability to get over his childish refusal to just propose and get it over with.

Of course, the fact that the one time he had made his own deluded attempt at sharing his feelings Rukia had slapped him so hard in the face that he went flying and hit the wall opposite probably didn't help, but Byakuya just couldn't seem to be able to place the blame on his much-maligned but much-beloved little sister.

It was all the Kurosaki boy's fault.

So Byakuya had concocted this scheme in order to force the boy into action. Either he would marry Rukia, or Byakuya would have an excuse to kill him. Byakuya actually rather hoped that the boy would be stupid enough to provide the latter, but he would settle for the former if it would ensure Rukia's happiness. And if he did kill the boy, he could call the whole thing off anyway because Rukia would surely be upset.

But for now, all he had to do was set things in motion. Everything should proceed normally from there...

He sat back and allowed himself a brief smile before calling Rukia in.

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"WHAT THE _FUCK?_"

That was all Renji managed to say before he apparently had a heart attack and toppled over backward. All that was visible of him were his feet and a lingering spray of sake in the air.

Tatsuki, who was there because Rukia had always liked her and regretted not being able to get to know her better during their time on earth together and because she liked playing drinking games with Renji, simply made a face and took another swig, her face unreadable in the bar's gloom. "That's the most freaking disturbing thing I've ever heard," she informed them all flatly. She considered this, and then added, "And I grew up with _Chizuru_."

Orihime had been silent through these reactions, and was ponderously waving her chopsticks around her head. Uryuu was forced to keep leaning away from her so as not to lose an eye. He looked disturbed as it was, but only adjusted his glasses and watched his wife warily out of the corner of his still-attached eyes. After a moment, said weapon of mass destruction came out with, "Eeeeeeew."

There was silence around the table, though Rukia imagined that she could hear Renji twitching on the ground, possibly in the throes of shock-induced death.

For her part, Rukia was blushing furiously, something she didn't often do. It was just so... it was such a _strange_ thing to have to tell them.

"But isn't he your _brother_, Rukia-chan?" Orihime, always useful for breaking an uncomfortable silence.

Rukia shrugged ruefully. "Not really," she said, though in truth that thought had occured to her as well. "There's no blood relation. I am simply the sister of his former wife. As you know."

"But still, Rukia-chan..." Orihime shook her head, her glorious mane of golden-brown hair swinging around to smack poor, abused Uryuu in the face repeatedly. "It's a little... creepy that you're going to marry him."

There was a muffled choking sound from the vicinity of Renji's corpse at the word "marry."

"And what about Kurosaki-kun?"

Rukia grimaced. "What about him?" she asked. "It'll be a bit awkward convincing him that there's no good reason to throw a fit once he finds out, but... that's why I have you." She looked hopefully around the table. "I thought that perhaps you could all help me tell him, and then help me tie him to a tree until he calms down. I don't think he likes Nii-sa- I mean, Byakuya-sama- much." It felt so wrong calling him Byakuya-sama, but it would feel even more wrong marrying him while still thinking of him as Nii-sama.

There had been a group twitch at the moment of confusion, and Renji's feet slipped down sideways. Rukia wondered briefly if she really had killed him, and then dismissed his odd behavior as a combination of shock and Renji-ness.

Tatsuki surprised her then by laughing. "You're gonna have one helluva time doing that," she said. "If I know Ichigo, he's gonna try to kill 'im."

"That is precisely the problem," Rukia said. "I don't want him to do anything stupid, but, well, it _is_ Ichigo. Stupid is what he _does._"

There was general agreement, even from Renji, who showed his enthusiasm for this concept by trying to sit back up, and though all he managed to do was roll his feet back into view the point was recieved.

"So what are we going to do?" Orihime asked. She would have preferred to argue, but her mind was stuffed up by the sheer enormity of the horror she was experiencing. "Oh!" She brightened slightly as an idea occured to her. After all, if there was nothing she could say, she had to at least protect Kurosaki-kun. "You could write him a letter!"

"Oh, please," Tatsuki groaned, rolling her eyes. "A _Dear John_ letter?"

Rukia gave her a blank stare. "Who's John?"

"Never mind."

"But Rukia-chan," Orihime cut in, "you really shouldn't do this. Kurosaki-kun will be so sad. And I don't think you want to-"

"There's nothing you can say," Rukia said. "It has been decided. But a letter may do the trick." She rose from the table, nodded curtly to them all, and jumped neatly over Renji's body on the way out. It wasn't until some time later that it occured to the remaining group that she had left them the bill.

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Some time later, Ichigo returned to his office to find Rukia mysteriously absent and, neatly centered on his desk, a note. Though usually he ignored paperwork, he had mental scarring from the one other time he had found a non-business related note- he could tell it wasn't business because Rukia had used her note paper rather than the special, expensive brand she insisted upon using for important documents- in Rukia's hand, and so he decided to read this one immediately.

_Captain Kurosaki,_ -oh, shit, she was calling him Captain. This was bad.

_I have left this note to inform you that I will be taking leave from work for several months in order to assist in the planning of my wedding. An invitation to the ceremony should arrive by butterfly in approximately six weeks, but I shall not be seeing you until the event, as I will be very busy and so will you. Sentarou and Kiyone have kindly agreed to cover my duties in my absence, and will contact me should there be any trouble._

_Signed,_

_Vice-Captain Kuchiki Rukia_

_PS: As you may recieve inquiries, my groom to be is Byakuya-sama. _

_PPS: I have also asked Sentarou and Kiyone to restrain you._

When Ukitatke made his weekly visit to his old headquarters ten minutes later, he was shocked to find that all was left of his faithful third-seats was a groaning pile of singed goo.

((Okay, this is indeed a weird idea, but who ever said I was normal? Eh, the writing's not really up to my usual standards, but it's all I've got. As you may have guessed, this comes directly after Maid of Honor. xP And Diabolical Scheme, Take Two should be out soon.

Yours truly,

Silence.

By the way, in light of the most recent chapter...

Mayuri-san is a psycho stalker. Also, he is possibly a pedophile. That is all.))


End file.
